


put in the hours to keep me in sunglasses

by sandyk



Series: secret meeting [1]
Category: Iron Man (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Collection: Purimgifts Day 1, Gen, everybody's getting along fine, vaguely au post cacw
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-02-14
Updated: 2018-02-14
Packaged: 2019-03-18 03:26:43
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 965
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13673289
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sandyk/pseuds/sandyk
Summary: Naturally, even super secret private yoga classes get disrupted.





	put in the hours to keep me in sunglasses

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Port](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Port/gifts).



> not mine, no profit garnered. title from the national's secret meeting. I hope you like, Port!!

i. 

Tony enjoys various forms of yoga, using enjoy as a vague sort of "knows it's a good idea," "sometimes it's more than he can manage" and "it's a thing he does with Pepper." He enjoys lots of things because he does them with Pepper. 

Even during the troubled era of Tony and Pepper not being together, he still did the yoga. He was doing a lot of going through the motions in those dark days. 

He now has his yoga studio at the Avengers place upstate. You have to know three different passwords to get in, all of which he told Pepper. Natasha ignores security or the message Tony might want privacy. So Tony understands why Pepper and Natasha are there. Natasha must have invited Sharon Carter which explains her. Tony looks at Laura Barton and says in his friendliest voice, "You're not out in the fields, farming for a better, more quiet tomorrow?"

"My husband was in jail," Laura says. "His own fault. So we moved to somewhere cheaper because I didn't know he was getting out in under a month."

"You're welcome," Tony mouths.

"You didn't get him out," Natasha says. 

"Got him off the hook so he can have his farm back," Tony says. "So, really, thank you, Pepper."

"Because taking credit is so important," Pepper says. She's stretching like a pretzel, Tony wishes he could be that flexible but even at his youngest and most uninjured he wasn't even close. 

"The point is," Laura says. "Natasha very kindly arranged for the four of us to stay in a place near here, and now that Clint's back, thank you everyone, I can go out and socialize."

"In Tony Stark's top secret yoga studio," Sharon says. 

"I like top secret socializing, you meet all the best people," Laura says, smiling at Natasha. 

The teacher rings a tiny bell and gestures for everyone to get in their opening mountain pose. 

Tony never competes. At yoga. It's the one activity where he doesn't compare himself to everyone around him. It's intelligent narcissism because everyone else in the room is more flexible and has better form. Not that Tony is bad, he's great. They're all just better. 

When they're done and everyone has said their final namaste and the teacher is off to his helicopter to take him wherever he comes from (Tony is not in charge of choosing or vetting), Tony and Pepper head upstairs to their room. They have their own suite because Tony paid for this place and therefore there was going to be a room made to Pepper's specifications and her maximum happiness. 

It has a huge tub. More like a tiny heated swimming pool with no chlorine and pure water. Pepper floats naked on her back before closing her eyes and dipping under the water. She comes up and shakes out her hair. She says, "Are you getting in?"

"I don't know, I love this view."

"I don't love your smell," Pepper says. 

So he's in the tub, getting a soft scrub from Pepper's highly organic something sponge, when the window explodes and something large, porous, and pulsing black bursts in. Tony pushes Pepper behind him and reaches for his watch, or whatever he can find to start the suit process. The extremis process which Tony is really proud of but right now just wants on him. And he's sore and worn out from 100 minutes of heated vinyasa. His hand scrambles on the side until he finds the watch and then he surges up and out of the tub. The black vibrating sponge is making a noise that could be threatening. 

Tony stands between the Sponge Black no pants and Pepper. He says, "What are you? Who are you? Maybe stay where you are and we only do damage to the tempered glass you should not be able to break through."

The sponge makes a sound like a snarl and surges forward. Something in its main bulbous area opens up and has sharp teeth. Tony immediately blasts between the teeth. The sponge is now burning, but only around the hole. "It's like Death Becomes Her," Pepper says. 

"Pepper, call for help and be someplace that is not here, please," he says. 

"Should I feel threatened by a sponge?"

"Did you see the teeth?"

"It doesn't have any left now," Pepper says. She is standing in the door in a robe, typing on a tablet. "I've summoned the troops."

"Sorry, boss," Friday says. "This isn't the only room being invaded."

The sponge hasn't moved from the spot, but its shape is shifting around the burnt hole. A tendril reaches out for Tony and another towards Pepper. Tony flies up and away and fires at the Pepper reaching finger. "Who else is the blob after, Friday?"

"There are three in the compound," Friday says. "One in Laura Barton's room, one taking on Sharon and Natasha. None of them are doing very well."

"Laura or the sponges?"

"The sponges," Friday says. "They're not sponges, boss, I've scanned their composition. More like liquid rock, uniform in composition. No brain, no heart, no eyes."

"Are they magic? Or alien?" Pepper sounds slightly worried.

"Can't tell," Friday says. 

Tony fiddles with his sensors and then blasts out nitrogen until the sponge is frozen solid. Then it's easy enough to pulverize and cremate. Tony boxes up the black dust and throws it out the window. He flies out and vaporizes the box. "Is it all gone?"

"Seems so," Friday says. "I don't detect it even on a molecular level." 

"So now we don't know who sent it or how they sent it or if it's just liquid rock that suddenly got very angry at yoga pants," Tony says. 

"Maybe the others will do better," Friday says.


End file.
